“I scare you?”
“What? No, of course not.”
“I was rough,” he grits out.
I put pressure on his jaw, and he stops, turning to look at me.
“I liked what you did to me.”
He stares into my eyes, reading the truth in them, before he shudders and presses his lips to my forehead. “I lost myself fora minute. I forgot everything but how you felt. Won’t happen again.”
“What if I want it to?” I whisper. He pulls back and looks at me in surprise. “You made me feel powerful. I’m tired of feeling weak, Ambros, of being treated like I’m fragile. Right then, there was no history hanging over my head, no ghost standing beside me, and no demons ready to drag me back to hell. Don’t taint that by making me feel like we did something wrong.”
“God, I love you.”
“I…I love—” He presses his lips to mine and swallows the rest.
“Not yet. There is no rush. I don’t need your words to act like a soothing balm. You do that already just by being next to me. You say them when you know in your gut that it’s true.”
“How will I know?”
“You’ll just know.” He chuckles when I huff and give no answer. “Now, let’s get you showered and dressed. You have a movie date to get to.”
* * *
“Is this your first date?”
I look over at Amity and throw a piece of popcorn at her. “You’re not funny.”
“Liar. How are you finding the movie snacks? Good, right?”
“Oh yeah. I don’t get how people have any left by the time the movie starts,” I complain, looking down at the half-eaten popcorn as she laughs at me.
When the lights fade and darkness blankets the room, I slide down and make myself comfortable as the movie starts. I have no idea what we’re watching—this theater plays slightly older movies—but I quickly become absorbed in a story about a bunch of thieves who boost cars and fall in love along the way.
“So we’re rooting for the bad guys, right? Not the cops?”
“Life imitates art, does it not?”
“That’s your way of saying our guys are bad guys?”
“If they were, would you want Ambros any less?”
“I’m not sure there is anything Ambros could do to make me want him less. It’s pathetically tragic, really.”
“All the good love stories are,” she teases as an explosion on the screen makes me jump.
“Did she just drive her car off a train into a helicopter?”
“Uh-huh. Awesome, right?”
I slowly turn my head to look at her. “That’s you, isn’t it?”
She grins before throwing a handful of popcorn into her mouth.
“You’re insane,”
“So your sister keeps on telling me.”
